You won't believe it?

You will find this hard to believe, but I promise this is all true! My son has wanted to join the Navy since about 13 years old because I am a Navy veteran. He wanted to do something special, so decided on the SEALS. For the last 2 years he has dedicated his life to this goal. He is now 19 years old. He spent 3500.00 of his own money for corrective eye surgery, worked out four nights a week with a local SEAL whos job is to physicaly prepare young men while they are in DEP. He was so dedicated to this career path he was made leading petty officer to guide others in this, in the absence of their instructor. He is hard core and would do this without compensation, just room and board! He was told that he had to wait 6 months after the eye surgery before he could sign up. In the meantime. He spent his time training and assisting others in their training. Spent much of his own time and money getting others to and from the training at the request of his SEAL instrucor and his recruiter. These were kids who wanted to try out, but often had to be picked up and taken to the training by my son. Kids would come from about a 60 mile radius to attend these training sessions. My son waited the required six months and completed his formal PST testing for the SEALS. Hoorah! All the training paid off. Not only did he pass, but his scores were considered "Elevated". When you have elevated scores the Navy agrees to give you $2000.00 up front of your $40,000.00 signing bonus that you will be given if you complete BUDS training. A nice bonus to your first pay check! Right!! Anyway, my son was given his SEAL contract. Gave up his guaranteed Master at Arms A School. He had a very thorough physical at MEPS and was given the green light to head off to the very elite divsion 8 at Great Lakes. Now here is when things went bad and I promise this is all true. My son was in day 3 of week two. Divsion 846. They were all going for a routine follow-up physical to insure everyone was okay and no reactions to the many shots etc. A physician pulled my son asside and told him "you have acne" My son was shocked about the statement and not sure how to respond. He of course knows he has acne they have mirrors in bootcamp! My son has had teenage acne for several years, like many teenagers do. Not disfiguring serious acne that you see some kids with, just your normal everyday acne that he will grow out of in his early 20's. The Navy told my son that he could not continue his training in this condition and transferred him to Ship 5 to be seperated!! What? Thats right. You cannot join our US NAVY at a time of war if you have pimples! We are going to lose the war due to Zits!
He lost his contract and was sent home. It gets better...He was told this was all his recruiters fault. The recruiter should have told him he would have to clear up the acne before he would be allowed to go to Great Lakes. He would have done so, had we known, while we waited the six months recovering from the eye surgery. The recruiter did not recognize this as a problem. His SEAL instructor did not see this as a problem. The MEPS doctors did not see this as a problem? How much of your tax dollars was waisted during this process? Here is another kick in the boys! I had a farewell party for him just before he shipped off. His SEAL instructor had to schedule his last PST before he left and it happened to be the day of his party. My son had to drive 4 hours one way to the test location and head out at 3 AM to get there in time. His scores was elevated! $2000.00 bonus...Right? During week one of bootcamp they made division 8 take this PST all over again? They had SEAL instructors on site and used kids that were aspiring to be SEALS to keep the count of the number of pushups, situps, pullups, etc. My son completed the test and was still well within the "elevated" numbers. WRONG! The kid responsible for counting, told the instructor that on a number of the pushups, my son did not go all the way down and the same on the pull ups. No more bonus! The Navy saved a lot in bonus money on this day. All the boys suddenly forgot how to complete a proper pushup!!
My son was given a medical discharge with the option to return to the Navy when he clears his face. His discharge however indicates that he was responsible for defrauding the Navy. He should have known he was not a candidate for the Navy in his condition. My son indicates he intends to do as the Navy asks and see a dermatologist to re-enlist as quickly as possible. You can bet I will be trying to talk him out of this and will be setting down with our Congressman to tell this story if I can talk him out of going back. One more bit of info before I close....My son was in boot for a total of almost a month between division 8 and ship 5. Most of what my son paid for with his first Navy check for uniforms, the Navy took back. Now they are telling us he owes them $40.00 and will be getting the bill in a couple weeks!!